Dragoncrest Cliffs and maybe in a year i will not feel like a bad queer

maybe a @Rose or @Eastwood? aw tho!

things have mostly settled into normalcy, or as much as normalcy can be for her. blixen is still somewhat unsure of herself as a leader -- listen, it's been like, a month in a half, she's still learning. bat's disappearance remains a black mark on her record even with everything else. when nomi comes home she'll have to take responsibility for that, and for letting mallaidh join them again even if she never told nomi explicitly that she was natrona. no, though, she's not natrona, and that's blix's argument. 

there's about fifty other dangling threads between her and mallaidh, but that's neither here nor there right now, as much as blix wants it to be here, now.

what should she make of ... them? they're just friends, but that doesn't mean that her feelings are any different, or that she doesn't feel the tensions lingering in the air between them, unsaid words, thinks that she thinks but does not breath lest it scare the silver-caped girl away from her once again. and there are complications too: saarthal and max, what do they mean to her, rose, rose and her everything that blix is only just starting to figure out, figuring out how she actually feels. jealousy is convenient but obscures the truth; blix is not as clear-headed as mallaidh about these things.

sighing, the young commander moves towards the borders, aimlessly taking up patrol.

drageda had acquired a certain youngness to it that portia just didn't have anymore. she was not old, not by any means, but nowadays the pack was filled with yearlings and drama. secretly, portia drank up the gossip. whenever any of her children or anyone who came to her for medicinal needs stopped by, portia would always ask about things. the nosey scoundrel. but it was fun! and petty! and portia loved being both of those things.

the packs youth kept her youthful, despite her twisted ankle and the black patch on the bridge of her muzzle that was beginning to turn white... just along her nose... 

rarely did portia leave the borders. there was plenty to find within drageda. she had established a garden filled with all the herbs she could ever need. and when she didn't tend to her, her children and maybe even rose did so as well. dalia used to take the best care of it. but, alas, portia had to pick up the slack. she tried not to think about it. if she was sad, her family would be sad. and besides, she'd done the same thing to her own mother. leave the nest. it was fine, dalia would be fine, portia just had to hope that she'd raised her well enough to take care of herself.

but she was double-checking for herbs along the outskirts of the territory. it was growing colder, after all, and portia hoped to find some stragglers to take back to her cache. extra supplies never hurt anyone. 

instead, she found blixen, off on patrol as usual, and portia gave a friendly chuff. "hei," she greeted, dipping her head respectfully to the young commander, adjusting her posture accordingly, "how are you doing, hun?"

portia has been a more-or-less constant figure in her life and as far as blix is concerned, she is family, both literally (as mother to her cousins-slash-siblings) and figuratively. but she has not spent much time with her. after all she has been young and busy with her youngness, her friends her own age. as commander, though, the dynamic is different -- you know that funny moment when the adults in your life no longer feel so distanced from you -- blix is a peer, now, not a child. 

the revelation is not so immediate or strange as she once imagined it might be, though it does carry a certain melancholy. none of this registers in the moment, however, as she smiles at the fisa. "hei, portia -- i'm doing well," she answers politely, "how are you and the kids?" it doesn't really occur to her that dalia's departure must be something sad for her parents, especially after sirio's... sirio. in the midst of everything else that's happened, her cousin's absence has gone unfelt -- they were never as close as blix meant for them to be, after all.